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[Reprint from the June, 1903, Issue of cblSlpN, publl(-!he'9td',tr4tl'aAta,*Qav]' 



GroAvin^ TKree Bales of 
Cotton to tHe Acre and 
How It Is Done. j0^ j^ 




"Rv G. H. TURNER., of Burgess, Miss. 



The Story of How One Farmer Makes Three Bales on a 

Single Acre of Ordinary Land, With Directions 

for Those Who Wish to Follow His Example. 

In round numbers, on a conservative basis, the South 
plants about 25,000,000 acres in cotton each year and gets 
about 10,000,000 bales, thus taking two and a half acres on 
an average to make one bale of cotton. When we consider 
thai on an average all of this land is capable of making at 
least one bale of cotton to the acre under ordinary careful 
farming, we realize what an enormous amount of useless 
labor is expended annually in the cotton growing states from 
the direct cause of ignorance. 

For a number of years, on ordinary land, I have made 
4,200 pounds of seed cotton per acre, or three bales, in other 
words, and knowing the ease with which this can be done, if 
the average farmer only "knows how," has led me to write 
this little book, giving my fellow cotton growers the benefit 
of my experience and observation. Had I known what I 
know now thirty years ago when I commenced growing cot- 
ton, the knowledge would have been worth many fortunes to 
me over and over, and now that I give this experience to oth- 
ers my one hope is that the cotton growers of the South will 
make practical use of it and profit thereby, as this experience 
is now profiting me. 

One of the reasons for the past extremely low average in 
cotto n production in the South per acre is owing to the fact 

[Mr. Turner is a large, influential and successful planter of Burgess, Miss., whose 
well known success as a cotton grower is recognized not only in his own Stale, but 
in the entire cotton belt of the South. Anything along this line, therefore, com- 
ing from his pen, cannot fail to command the interest and attention of every 
farmer in the South who is engaged In raising cotton, and who earnestly desires 
to improve his methods and materially increase his yield, while at the same time 
ncurring comparatively immaterial extra expense.— Editors.] 



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'theft «d)t*pn*e.fstfrti6r* out qI ie'p ever takes the trouble to study 
•iris. own' f and;' atn'd'r(Sarn wh'iSt it needs in the way of fertilizer, 
Another reason is that cotton growers are content to plant 
one variety of cotton on all kinds of soil, when it is so essen- 
tial that different varieties should be planted on different soils. 

Take the average cotton planter in the South today and 
he never stops to ask what kind of fertilizer he should buy 
or what kind* of seed should be planted on this field or that 
one. He buys a brand of fertilizer because some one else 
buys it, or it is recommended by his merchant. He plants 
the same seed on all his fields and even plants the same seed 
for years without selecting improved varieties. 

This is all wrong, and so long as it remains so the South 
will continue to grow cotton at the rate of one bale to three 
acres, instead of making three bales to one acre, which I have 
been doing for years, and which the average farmer can do 
himself. 

My farm, like thousands of others in the South, is outrage- 
ously poor, but a portion of it is fairly strong land. On this 
farm I have considerable poor upland, yellow, or so-called 
mulatto clay. It is on this land that I obtain my largest yield 
of cotton, but to do this I use a complete fertilizer, by which 
I mean that I adapt the kind of fertilizer that the land natur- 
ally demands for cotton growing. Directions for the different 
fertilizers for the different soils I will give later. 

In beginning your cotton crop bear in mind that thor- 
ough preparation of the soil in the winter and the early spring 
is very essential to a large yield of cotton. Plough the land 
very deep and put it in thorough tilth before you plant. This 
is half the race. Cotton does not take much work after it is ' 
up and starts growing. It then needs only surface scraping. 
That is why the negro is such a success as a cotton grower. 
He is too lazy to plough deep in working cotton, and the plant 
is one that needs only light culture. Therefore I give this 
caution to have the land well prepared before the crop is 
planted. 

To get the best results in cotton growing rotate your 
crops. Cotton is a clean crop, by which we mean that it is 



generally cleaned in the late summer and no growth is. left on 
the land except the cotton plant itself, which does not leave 
enough on the land to help feed the fertilizer the following 
year. 

In selecting fertilizers each farmer must be largely his 
own judge, as to the needs of his land, but a few general rules 
will show any one of ordinary intelligence how to use fertiliz- 
ers intelligently. 

If the stalk growth of your cotton is excessive use a fer- 
tilizer in which the percentage of phosphates is large. This 
will largely increase the fruiting capacity of the stalk, and 
give you the very best possible result. 

If the stalk growth is weak, puny and spindling, and thfl 
foliage of a pale, sickly, yellow color, use a brand of fertiliztl 
that is made up with plenty of potash in it, which stimulates 
the stalk growth. If the bolls are small and inferior and 
show a disposition not to mature fully, potash is the one in- 
gredient that will remedy the evil. 

These rules simplified mean that where your land is such 
that the stalk needs stimulating use nitrogen and potash 
largely,and where you need more fruit depend largely on the 
phosphates. 

If you wish to hasten the maturity of the crop, so as to 
escape frost, use phosphates; but if you wish the cotton to 
keep on growing late you will reach your end by the liberal 
use of potash. 

The average cotton grower, who will keep these simple 
rules in mind, cannot make a mistake, for he will well know 
from experience just on what field he needs more stalk 
growth, or on what field this stalk growth needs retarding. 
It is the following of these rules which has enabled me to 
increase my yield of cotton on the same land from i,ooo 
pounds of seed cotton per acre to over 4,200 pounds. 

In striving for the best results in cotton growing and to 
make two or three bales to the acre, of course the farmer 
must fertilize heavily, but it pays best. It will not do to de- 
pend on 200 pounds of cheap fertilizer per acre ; you can never 
reach the best results in that way. I use as high as 1,000 

4 



pounds of high-grade fertilizer, and even more at times, but 
in doing this I get the very best results. I have found that by 
increasing the amount of fertilizer, say from $7 to $9 per acre, 
I have been able to get an extra bale of cotton, which I claim 
is a good investment, when you consider the fact that it takes 
no more to cultivate a well fertilized acre than one that is 
poorly fertilized. 

If you find that your land is of the heavy alluvial char- 
acter and contains much feeding substance and an excess of 
nitrogen, depend entirely on the phosphates as a fertilizer, 
and on such land you can use the largest quantity, and be 
sure of getting the very best results. 

One of the great mistakes which many farmers make in 
the South in cotton growing, and in fact with many crops, 
is that they apply all the fertilizer at the time of planting, or 
before, and then leave the crop to grow or mature with that, 
failing to give it another application. A moment's thought 
will tell any sensible man that this is wrong. Every cotton 
grower knows that every year his cotton puts on enough 
squares, or shapes, to make three or four times as much as it 
does, but that the plant sheds the greater part of these shapes. 
What is the reason for this? It is want of strength in the 
soil. The shedding, which always goes on in July on crops 
not properly fertilized, comes from a weakness which the 
wide-awake farmer will remedy. This is done by applying 
fertilizer to your cotton as you work the crop. By adding this 
strength to the soil at the cotton plant's roots, you enable it to 
retain the shapes. In other words, you give it strength to 
hold its fruit. 

Here lies one of the great mistakes which the majority 
of cotton growers make. They never think of feeding the cot- 
ton plant but once. This is in the early spring. Sometimes 
the fertilizer is put in the ground in February. By July, when 
the plant needs strength to keep the fruit it is taking on this 
fertilizer is exhausted. It has been used up by the young 
plant, or washed away by the spring rains. Just when the 
plant needs strength most it has least. This is the time when 
the proper fertilizer should be applied as you work the crop, 







(^AJCHeLV-i^AiJUiHc, p^^/^.^. 



No. 1. — Cotton from vSmali, Area Where no Fertilizer was Used. 



putting it close to the roots of the plant as you plough it, then 
covering with a light furrow. If your plant has plenty of 
stalk at this stage but needs more shapes or is shedding its 
shapes, use a strong phosphate brand. If the stalk is small 
and needs pushing, use a brand that has a good percentage of 
potash in it and also plenty of phosphates. 

It is this simple feeding of the cotton plant at the proper 
time that helps me make three bales to the acre. This could 
not be done in any other way that is practical. 

In planting my crop I give the plant good distance, both 
in width of rows and in the hill. You cannot crowd cotton- 
and get the best results. Consider the quality of your land. 




No. 2. — Cotton from Same Area as No. 1, but Fertilized and Cultivated 
After Improved Methods Described Herein. 



You know about what size stalk you will get. Thin the crop 
according to the quality of your land. 

In this connection I wish to say that a great many farm- 
ers allow their cotton to grow too thick in the row, often 
allowing two stalks in the same hill. A little care in this 
simple matter will add several hundred pounds of cotton to 
each acre, as the best results cannot be had where the plants 
are too close. 

Years ago I used to make an average of i,ooo pounds of 
seed cotton per acre and thought I was doing well. On 
twenty acres I usually got about fourteen bales. I commenced 



along the lines I have indicated in the foregoing pages, and 
the result was soon 2,000 pounds per acre. I continued to 
add the right fertilizer to the land, to apply it at the right 
time and it was not long before my crop went beyond 4,000 
pounds per acre, and all done by the simple methods which I 
have tried to make plain to my friends in the business in these 
pages. 

It is a simple thing to do, but to do it you must be watch- 
ful and observant. You must watch every part of every field. 
If you have a part of one field that is wearing away, plant peas 
on it, or haul in humus, or rest it. Do something to bring it 
up to the average. 

When you plough your lands in early spring don't be 
afraid of getting too deep, and when you apply fertilizer don't 
feel that you are throwing away money. You are simply 
planting money that will come up a hundred fold. 

' Study each part of every field and put just the kind of 
fertilizer on each it needs most. Don't be content to apply the 
■same fertilizer all over each field. One part will likely need 
a different brand from the other. 

When ihe plant begins to fruit in July then add a light 
application of fertilizer at each working. If you find the plant 
is holding the fruit, then withhold the fertilizer until it shows 
signs of failure. Then apply and continue to do so until you 
feel that your cotton plants have taken on a full crop, and 
•will be able to mature same in good time before the coming 
of frost. 

I know a great many farmers will say that to grow as 
much as three bales of cotton per acre is what they call 
^'fancy farming," but I know from experience that it is practi- 
cal farming. If T am anything I am practical, and I believe 
in getting the most out of your land you can. I used to think 
it was impossible to raise two bales of seed cotton per acre, 
but I found by experience that it was an easy matter not only 
to grow that much, but more. 

I am honest in the belief that the great majority of cotton 
growers in the South, if they will follow the directions I havt 
here laid down in the simplest lan^jiiage I know how, can in- 



•crease their average of cotton per acre at least lOO per cent, in 
a single year, and if they will continue to follow the directions 
given the time will not be far away when every acre that 15 
planted under the directions given will yield an average of 
over one bale per acre, instead of one-third of a bale as at 
present. The experiment is well worth trying. Plant fewer 
acres and make more ; that should be the policy of the cotton 
growers of the South from this time on. It will pay every one 
who starts out to follow this rule. 




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A NEW ERA DAWNING IN COTTON CULTURE. 
CHECKING COTTON. 

a H. TURNER. 

Scarcity and general unreliability of farm labor, together 
with the comparative low prices obtained for the fleecy sta- 
ple, even if no other causes were in operation, will force a 
change, whether said change is agreeable to the bulk of the 
cotton raisers or not. 

Each year sees a greater number of farm hands being 
drawn off to work in cities, in factories, warehouses, on rail- 
roads, to do odd jobs generally, or to still further increase 
the already large army of vagrants and loafers who wear out 
the pavements on street comers and unceasingly watch for 
a chance to pick up something belonging to somebody else. 

Things seem to be evening up al around. While our cot- 
ton raising brethren are engaged in studying the labor prob- 
lem, our city friends seem to be just as busily engaged in 
studying the vagrant problem, the only feasible practical so- 
lution of the problem in either case being to render ourselves 
independent of either or both. This means the abolition of 
the share system, or cropping on the shares, and substitut- 
ing therefor the hiring of hands by the year. It also means 
the gradual, or possibly speedy, colonization, and consequent 
deportation of the negro. Again, it means a more syste- 
matic as well as more inteligent, skillful and scientific sys- 
tem of culture in the future than he has been heretofore. It 
means the more rational fertilization of the cottton plant and 
the saving of labor, time and money by the cultivation of 
cotton 

In Checks 
instead of continuous drill culture. 

Hoeing is an element of cost excessive to bear. Under 
the present system of cultivating in drills the hoe is often 
used unnecessarily, while in cotton, as in all other crops^ 
the hoe should be used as little as possible. Grass is an 

11 



implacable and very persistent enemy of the cottton planter. 
Grass can be more speedily, more cheaply, consequently 
more profitably as well as far more satisfactorily, eradicated 
by the many really good and efficient plows and cultivators 
that are to be found in the market than could possibly be 
dona by the most determined and persistent use of the hoe. 

Markham's picture of The Man With the Hoe, although 
not intended to represent the Southern cotton raiser, will 
answer very well the purpose of representing the past and 
present era, as compared with the future, of cotton culture. 
The back-breaking hoe will largely have to go, and Cuffy 
and Dinah, together with all the little pickaninnies composing 
the trash-gang, will be relegated to the rear and will have 
to take a back seat along with it. 

We do not make the slightest pretensions to being a 
prophet or even the son of a prophet, yet we unhesitatingly 
assert that it is just a question of time when check culture 
of cotton will be the rule and drill culture the exception; it 
is only a question of time, and a very short time at that. 
when practicing drill culture will be considered as showing 
a lack of intelligence, business tact and up-to-date ideas on 
the part of those who willingly adhere to such antiquated 
and obsolete methods. Drill culture of cotton is proof, posi- 
tive as holy writ, that the man practicing it has but little 
actual knowledge of the plant he cultivates; it proves that 
he has no confidence in it, no confidence in his soil, and no 
confidence in himself as a cotton raiser. 

The man wlio crowds cotton in the drill vainly believing 
that a multiplicity of stalks per acre means a multiplicity of 
bolls and a correspondingly large yield per acre, shows an 
utter ignorance of the very first principles of successful, 
profitable cotton culture. 

Three feet by eighteen inches, and but one stalk in a 
place, is as close as cottton should be allowed to stand, even 
on the very poorest of land. Where land is so poor that 
cotton cannot be profitably cultivated thereon, when given 
that distance, it is too poor to be planted in cotton at all; 
■better sow it down in cow peas. 

12 



Cotton is a plant that will readily adapt itself to cir-^ 
cumstances . If crowded, it may have six to twelve bolls per 
stalk, while, when given due distance, it may just as easily 
have sixty to six hundred bolls per stalk. 

We have just passed through a period of drouth lasting 
two months and twenty-one days; yet our cotton at this 
writing, August i8th, will easily average one hundred bolls 
per stalk, with no telling how many more in perspective. 

One difficulty in checking cotton is the liability to miss- 
ing hills or stalks, through clumsy animals, clumsier and 
still more careless hands, and clumsy and careless methods 
generally. The remedy for this is obvious; dispense with 
the services of clumsy hands, avoid clumsy and careless 
<nethods and ways of doing business, and put a premium on 
carefulness and skillful methods, whenever and wherever 
exhibited by the employee of the farm. 

In other words, encourage a good hand when you get 
one, by paying him for his goodness, being sure at the same 
time to let him know what you are paying him extra for; then 
discourage carelessness by striving to correct a careless 
hand, and if he fails to be corrected pay him off and dis- 
charge him on the spot; never pay a careless hand for care- 
less work ; it simply encourages carelessness . 

Another hindering cause to the checking of cotton is the 
universal inequality of the fertilitiy in soils, the cotton 
growing quite large in spots, and very much undersized in 
other spots looking somewhat like a series of oases in a desert. 

We know of no system whereby lands may be perma- 
nently improved faster than by a judicious fertilization of 
cotton, when checked and cultivated on the intensive plan. 

This is the very place for a man to exercise his skill in 
fertilizing, putting his nitrogen and potash freely on the 
poorer portions of the field, and his phosphates everywhere, 
but putting them on most liberally in his best soils, and more 
especially where cotton inclines to make excessive growth of 
weed. The poorer spots in a field may receive a dressing 
of stable manure with manifest advantage, may be sown 
down to cow peas broadcasted in the cotton at last working 

13 



the whole field sewn to crimson clover, or intercultural fer- 
tilizing practiced, until the entire field becomes of approxi- 
mately the same degree of fertility throughout. 

In checking cotton the land should be liberally fertilized 
where fertilizers are needed, thoroughly prepared, cotton 
planted with a planter in a continuous drill, the stand se- 
cured, then checks made by running across rows with sweep, 
heel-sweep or so-called "scrape," expanding-harrow or culti- 
vator, being sure the plants are thinned to final stand by 
June 1st to 5th. Cotton should stand on poor land, about 
three feet by eighteen inches; on medium land, making, say 
about a bale per acre, three by three feet; on good land 
capable of making one and a half to two or more bales per 
acre, four by four feet apart would probably be a good dis- 
tance, and where long and medium limbed varieties are 
planted never but one stalk in a place. "Limbless" or very 
compact "cluster" varieties might be left two, three or four 
in a place, according to the discretion and judgment of the 
cultivator, the proper distance of the hills or checks apart 
being determined in each and every instance by first th*; 
productive capacity of the land, and second its ability to re 
tain moisture. Of course where the growth is very rank the 
distance to be allowed must be greater, and where the weed 
growth is medium to small it may be proportionately anr 
correspondingly less. 

It is a fact that has been long established by accurate 
experimentation and experience that cotton planted on the 
square, or equal distances apart each way, will turn out 
more cotton per acre than when planted any other way. 
What folly then to fool away both time and money in hoeing 
a continuous row in order to get a stalk three by three or 
four by four feet apart, or to annually cut one's self out of a 
half-crop or possibly more, by leaving the cotton too thick 
as is now almost invariably done throughout the entire cot- 
ton belt, the width of a hoe and two, three or four, and even 
more stalks in a place being the rule. 

Under ordinary circumstances and with ordinary culture 
the yield of either cotton or corn would be practically aboui 

14 



y 



the same, the one advantage being that in either case the 
crops checked are invariably more economically cultivated 
than when drilled ; second, check culture admits, facilitates 
and though not necessarily or essentially so, seems to almost 
demand a more intensive system of culture, said more inten- 
sive system being invariably followed by increased satisfac- 
tion, largely increased yields and consequent largely 
increased profits. 

There is no profit in a crop of any kind unless said crop 
is above the average. To have large crops, we must have 
better farming. This better farming does not mean more 
work, but better work, and better work means that the brain 
must be used to facilitate and enhance in value the labor of 
the hands. 

There is something more in farming that is imperatively 
necessary besides hard work and plenty of it. A knowledge 
of the bvisiness is of vastly greater importance; it is possible 
to make the brain save the hands. It is also possible to so 
unite brain and brawn, mind and m.uscle, as to double, treble 
and quadruple irhe value the work performed by said mus- 
cle, by doing better and more profitable work, and doing 
that better, more profitable, hence, more valuable, work, to 
better advantage. 

The secret of success in cotton raising is no exception to 
the general rule, that the grand secret of success in any and 
all callings lies !n the knov/ how. 



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